"Prior to appointment there was approximately 20 contractors employed. Now there's about 120, so they're involved with the harvesting, haulage, chipping of the woodchip logs as well," he said.

Some of the contractors delivering wood to the mill are old hands, like Donald Beams.

He has been working for Gunns for 41 years.

"We had the obviously existing gear, and if we didn't have that you wouldn't buy machinery to go into it, as in buy new machinery or setting up leases. We're just hopeful that something, it'll come up. It's - I suppose you grab whatever you think you can, within reason," he said.

But the re-opening of the mill has not helped a Tasmanian businessman who makes trailers for log trucks.

Graeme Elphinstone's business has gone down by 80 per cent in the past two years, and he has had to put off 12 staff.

Mr Elphinstone says contractors are not buying new equipment, because the future of the forest industry is so uncertain.

He says that "people get awful nervous about spending money on short term futures or where they have no control of their future. And also the finance companies are very nervous because a lot of them have been burnt through this whole issue."

"Ideally we need a pulp mill."

The pulp mill site is right next door to Gunns' Longreach woodchip mill.

But the future of some of the plantations that were going to feed the mill is being debated in the courts.

And without a wood supply locked in, Mr Webster cannot say when Australia's biggest pulp mill project will go on the market.

"There's a lot of complexities around the pulp mill and the timing of when that may be taken to the market," he said.

"That's all wrapped up with what's happening in the courts at the moment and the trees associated with the managed investment schemes.

"At the moment it's not clear whether some of those schemes will be continuing. "